Samsung S4 malfunctioning… again.

OK, that’s not entirely true, I’m only partly annoyed. See, I’ve had a nice week overall. I’ve managed to catch up with a couple of friends, had news from others I hadn’t heard of in a while, and I did my training. Pilates also went well, I realised how much I had missed it.

Yesterday I managed to write again on my novel, despite the writer’s block I had been suffering for way too long. This morning, I woke up ridiculously early to volunteer at a BHF run. I was at the registration tent and it was fun. After that, since my cinema buddy stood me up (it’s OK, all is forgiven) I decided to go on my own and finally watched Maleficent. Mixed feelings for now.

Anyway, the reason I am annoyed is because of my mobile phone. You may know, or perhaps not, that I have a Samsung S4. I got it through my usual carrier, Vodafone, and let me tell you, I’m in love with this phone. It’s cool, easy to use and powerful. It’s also white (first white phone ever, yay! Even if my case is dirty all the time) which makes it look classy.

However, and this is a huge however, I am appalled at the bad quality of the batteries or something. I got the phone I think in September, or maybe in August, last year, pretty much as I moved flats. By November, and I remember this because we were doing the Movember runs, the phone started switching off on it’s own, despite having plenty of battery. The only way I could make it work again was by plugging it to the charger.

After much investigation, and calling Vodafone, they told me that Samsung had had a batch of faulty batteries, and that I could exchange it. They gave me credit on my account and told me to get a battery off Amazon, which I did.

All great, it seemed, until a few months later, sorry I can’t remember exactly when, but about 4-5 months, it happened again. I contacted Vodafone, in person, by chat and by phone, and I must say, they really have no clue what they’re doing, mainly because they’re all sales people, and there’s nobody who actually has technical knowledge. I explained the issue, and they told me that since the battery was new, it must had been the phone, so they decided to exchange it.

At the same time, I also changed the battery, just in case (and realising afterwards that the battery was, once again, swollen). New phone and new battery. Great!

Today, when I left the cinema, my phone switched off. I wasn’t sure why, so I tried to switch it on again and I managed to see briefly that I had 18% battery left, just before being prompted to plug the charger and the phone turning itself off again. Here we go.

Quickly, I opened the case and there it was, a swollen battery again.

After a long journey home, long because the DLR is boring when you have no music to entertain yourself with, I got home and plugged the phone and guess what? It showed it had 18% battery still.

This is extremely annoying, since I’ve been having this issue since I had the phone. This time, I’ve sent a complaint to Samsung directly, hoping they will get in touch. I still have another year on this contract, with this phone, and I can’t keep changing batteries every 5 months! It’s brand new, so it shouldn’t have this problem.

I really rather not rant over here, but enough is enough. I’ll keep you updated on Samsung’s response, if any at all, hopefully they’ll give me a solution.

Do you have a Samsung? Have you experienced the same issue? Is it resolved now? I would like to know!